Category: Writing

Categories
More about me Reading teaching Work Writing

7/52 QSLW 2026

So this week was Queensland School Library Week. And because I run a school library in Queensland… this week was my week to do stuff!!!

 

On Monday lunchtime, I ran a “QR Club”. QR meaning ‘quiet reading’ of course! And I was quite happy that students joined me; mainly Year 7s but Year 8s and even Year 11s as well. Tuesday was “Writers’ Group” which was less well attended because our Middle School students were all at their swimming carnival. Wednesday I ran “Illustrators Unite!” because why should words have all the fun? And Thursday was chess. We started with social games, but then took names for the tournament to start next week. And Friday was our Problem Solving group. Have you ever heard of “OzCLO”? It’s the Australasian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad… and the problems are HARD! But we won’t do this each week. Next week we’ll launch our Student Book Club during Friday lunch, so that should be interesting!

 

School Libraries might be viewed as places where ‘you go there if you’re a nerd’. Not on my watch, I hope. Not while I’m in charge of this particular school library. Because this week’s lunchtime activities were the launch week only. We’ll be continuing them each week … and this will join the general hubbub of board games, card games, chess games, enjoying books, and of course, study. We are a high school, after all!

 

So that was my week. A lot of organising, a lot of planning, and hopefully the beginning of a lot of fun! How was your week, dear Reader?

Categories
Random thoughts Work Writing

1/52 Legacies and New Year’s Resolutions

So I’ll be turning 52 later this year, God willing.

Sounds old-ish. Like I’m someone who’s got some experience under their belt, maybe even some knowledge – or even wisdom! – between the ears. I wonder if I do though.

So it’s the first Sunday in 2026. And in amongst the ‘what will I actually achieve this year?’ might possibly be the formation or continuation of habits that I’m actually proud of.

Ones that may turn into, one day when they’re all grown up, my legacy to this thing called ‘life’. Once I’m gone, I mean.

I just saw this on Facebook.:

I mean, WOW. Someone designed this, and convinced other someones to build it.

And it’s still around, and working, 1000 years later?!

Now *that* is legacy… for all those someones.

What will I do this year, this month, this week, this day – even this minute – that will be a step toward mine?

How will I choose to use my time this year?

Hmmm.

Thanks for being here, dear Reader. May you have a beautiful day and week.

KRidwyn

Categories
family anecdotes Writing

1/52 and let’s add photos…

Last year was somewhat successful in the blogging department. There were daily blogposts in June (thanks to @FiFYI for the challenge all those years ago now!) and pretty much weekly blogging for all the other months, so all in all I’m happy with that. Consistency was incredibly lacking prior to 2024, so hopefully 2025 will see me consolidate that improvement!

And this year I’m challenging myself with adding photos. Meaning the taking of photos, and sharing of same. Which is confronting, because I’d much rather not show evidence of how not-good a photographer I am.

And this new challenge? It’s going to include photos of me. See? Look how happy I am about this new challenge!

Just kidding. But if it’s ’only dead fish swim with the stream’ then I figure that to ‘be alive’ is ‘to grow’ and growth takes effort… which is uncomfortable. And I want to FEEL alive not just BE alive so this photo challenge it is. Something which takes me incredibly out of my comfort zone – not always a bad thing…

The photo above, taken by Miss16, is one I sent to my Compassion sponsor child earlier this week, when I finally worked out how to write letters online (sad, I know!) and I’m hoping he’ll like it because it’s been years since I sent him a photo of me! Other photos I took this week:

Mooloolaba at NYE after the 8.30pm fireworks. It’s a very pretty part of the world I’m blessed to call home! And:

The new look to my lounge room: the piano that Miss16 and I moved out of her bedroom. And I sightread a two-page Telemann piece after moving it, so I was doubly proud of these efforts! And finally, the social media screenshot which I’m FAR more comfortable sharing with you compared to my own photography efforts! This one I loved due to its surprising simile usage 🙂

And that’s it from me. Have an amazing second week of January, dear Reader, and I’ll meet you all back here next Sunday!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
family anecdotes Technology Writing

32/52 wait, what?

A conversation with my Miss19 the other day, about ‘why is the word “gnome” spelled with a silent “g” instead of a silent “k”?’ led to a quick Google search on ‘words that start with gn’.

I’d never have guessed these would be the search results!

Have an amusing week yourself, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
#blogjune Blogging challenges Reading Review Writing

#BlogJune Day 29

So I finished the trilogy I started on Monday: the Nevernight Chronicles by Jay Kristoff.

I’m thinking that he’s fast becoming one of my favourite authors. His writing style is as readable as Lynette Noni’s Akarnae and as witty as Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid. But his descriptions are all his own… and they are sublime! His similes, in particular, are so cleverly crafted to fit perfectly within the exact time and place of the plot. Simply stunning writing.

It’ll be a hard act to follow these, I think.

Stay tuned though, dear Reader, as I may yet be surprised…

Have a wonderful day 🙂

KRidwyn

Categories
#blogjune Review Writing

#BlogJune Day 24

This morning sees me train-bound, heading for Brisbane. New beginning for a new week; it seems apt that, with an hour long journey ahead with nothing to do but sit, I reward myself and download a novel I’ve been wanting to read for a while. Jay Kristoff’s NEVERNIGHT, the first in his trilogy of the same name.

So I downloaded, and then I opened it and started reading… and then stopped after the very first sentence.

Why? you may ask.

Because it’s brilliant! say I. And such an arresting beginning must be shared! (And, speaking from experience, I must act on this now before the novel swallows me and I don’t emerge for a lengthy period of time) so… here it is! Enjoy 🙂

Have an un-soiling-yourself week too, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
#blogjune random scribblings Scribblings Writing

Argh! Missed another! #BlogJune Day 16

And there’s actually no ‘good’ reason for missing yesterday’s, either! In fact, I was part-way through writing it, yesterday morning, but got distracted. And never came back, obviously 🙁

Oh well. I’m going to choose to be kind to myself rather than ‘beating myself up’ about it. There’s always today.

So here’s what I was thinking I’d share with you for today’s post: a haiku I made up this morning while feeding Kiya her breakfast. Poem inspired by a conversation with my Miss19, after whose words I’m choosing to title it. And a disclaimer: this is BAD haiku. As in… you’ll probably hate it. Sorry in advance if you do! But I find it highly amusing. So here goes:

Brain rot (?)

YouTube, TikTok meme

Sigma Meals: Skibidi Sliders!

I am the Rizz Lord.

 

So… whatcha think? Bad haiku, hey. I mean, who’s ever heard of an 8-syllable middle line?! Really!

Okay. I’ll show myself out. See you tomorrow, folks! (Hopefully!)

– KRidwyn

 

 

Categories
#blogjune Blogging challenges momentous events Random thoughts Writing

BlogJune #1

Better late than never, amiright? Truth be told, it wasn’t until the early hours of June 2 that I decided I was going to do the #blogJune challenge again this year. And 2024’s theme? Daily photo.

So apologies for being several hours late, but here was June the first’s:

Hope your day was similarly festive, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
Random thoughts Reading Writing

2/52 Home again and being introspective

I both love and loathe writing. Like the nursery-rhyme girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead: when [it] is good, it is very, very good; but when [it] is bad, it is horrid.

I was pretty excited last March though, to be so near the end of my Justine Browning journey I was ‘querying’ agents, and ‘in the trenches’. Then a hiccup regarding word counts hit – at the same time as I received a huge pile of English drafts to read and return to my high-school English classes. Enter my first overwhelming encounter with my darlings’ use of ChatGPT, and the world of AI writing.

And I lost it. All motivation. All hope of ever ‘making it’ as a published author. Because seriously, what even will the publishing industry LOOK like in ten years, with AI now here, and here to stay?

Admittedly, life also got a heap busier with my Mum deciding to separate from my Dad, but there you have it – the series of inciting incidents which brought my 2023 writing journey to a screaming halt.

But this year, I’m determined to look on the bright side. Intentionally. And I couldn’t help but laugh when “Goodwill Librarian” posted this, this week:

 

And that was all it took to shake me from my self-imposed writing paralysis. Because I could see clearly how words are important! I should know – these past school holidays I’ve read more books than I’ve read in simply AGES! Other people’s words – their viewpoint on this incredible thing we call life – has been important to me. And who’s to say that my words might indeed be important to others?

Hence this return to my poor neglected blog. To eke out some words and fling them into the ether, with nought but the hope that someone, someday, may stumble across them and read. Maybe even comment!

And even if none do, the externalisation of my thoughts into text is good for me. Straighten out my own understanding of my personal world view, as it were. And ‘there’s a spider in your bra’ is certainly so disparate a response to ‘undress me with your words’ to what I could ever conceive, that it’s good for me to realise and understand this!

I hope you smiled like I did at that meme. And have a great week, dear Reader!

  • KRidwyn
Categories
Blogging challenges family anecdotes Writing

1/52 Memories, from Melbourne, with hope

And so it begins; my first blogpost of the New Year. And I’m in Melbourne, which apparently used to be called Batmania prior to being renamed back in 1837.

(And no, although it’s amusing to think of a black-winged crime fighter controlling the convicts in this area of Down Under, apparently it was named after John Batman, a leading member of the Port Philip Association and the person who negotiated a treaty with the Aboriginal elders to purchase 600,000 acres… so nothing to do with DC Comics, Inc.)

But discovering this fact the other day got me thinking about the past, and how so much of history gets forgotten, both intentionally and accidentally.

I met a lovely lady last night – my cousin’s mother-in-law. It was her 76th birthday party and our conversation had moved onto the topic of tattoos. I related the story of one of my family member’s, who’d faithfully kept a diary – until the day his girlfriend at the time found it, read it, and used it against him. Unsurprisingly, he’d decided to stop journaling, and ink his memorable events onto his skin instead. I’ve always wondered if this second method resulted in lost memories. And this saddens me.

2023 was one of those years which I’m glad has ended. And although I could blithely say “I could happily forget whole chunks of it” I know that, should I *actually* do so? Sure I’d be more free-from-pain than I am right now, but I’d also no longer be me. Our memories are what makes us who are we – and there’s lessons I learned through those painful 2023 experiences that I’m glad I won’t have to re-learn.

So here I am, starting 2024 more despondent than I can ever remember being, but intentionally trying to look for snatches of hope for a brighter year. (They *do* say when you’re down, the only way is up, right?) And hope, after all, is all we need, yes? Aren’t there a plethora of films out there whose entire premise is that hope is stronger than hate, or fear, loneliness or depression?

So that’s how I’m looking at 2024. One day at a time, one hour at a time. Trying to see the good, rather than focusing on the less-than-good of the recent past. Moving on, moving upwards. And recording it in words here on this blog, which I’m grateful to be able to do. Not everyone feels they have the luxury to record their thoughts in text, after all.

So. Here’s to a hope-full week ahead for us all, dear Reader, and I’ll see you next week 🙂
⁃ KRidwyn

PS Just cos I can: the doubledecker bus I rode from Tullarine airport to Melbourne CBD. The last time I rode on a doubledecker was in 1980 in London!